The Citadel: Concordance - 2.1.3. King’s Landing and its Environs

2.1.3. King’s Landing and its Environs

If the wind's are good, a person might sail from White Harbor to King's Landing and arrive well ahead of a party that have had two or more weeks on horseback from Winterfell (I: 115)
Three hundred years before, the site of King's Landing was hills and forests, with only a handful of fisherfolk living north of the Blackwater Rush (I: 141)
King's Landing is where Aegon the Conqueror first landed, and on the highest hill the first fortress of wood and earth was made (I: 141)
King's Landing sprawls across the shore with arbors, granaries, manses, storehouses, inns, graveyards, brothels, taverns, merchant stalls, etc. A person at sea would see that the city would cover the shore as far as the eye can see (I: 141)
King's Landing has a fish market (I: 141)
Visenya's Hill is crowned by the marble-walled Great Sept of Baelor and its seven crystal towers (I: 141. II: 549)
Rhaenys's Hill is peaked by the collapsed ruins of the Dragonpit dome, its bronze doors shut for a century (I: 141)
The Street of the Sisters runs straight as an arrow between the hills of Visenya and Rhaenys (I: 141)
A hundred quays line the waterfront (I: 141)
Ferrymen pole back and forth across the Blackwater (I: 141)
Trading galleys from the Free Cities come to trade at King's Landing (I: 141)
Whalers from the Port of Ibben might trade at King's Landing (I: 142)
Halfway up Visenya's Hill is Eel Alley, where an inn may be found (I: 143)
The City Watch wear golden cloaks and black armor (I: 143)
The City Watch is led by its Commander (I: 229)
The Great Sept of Baelor has a rainbow pool (I: 229)
The Street of Steel is where most smiths have their forges. It begins on the market square besides the River Gate and climbs up Visenya's hill. The higher up one goes, the more expensive the shops (I: 234)
The River Gate is better known as the Mud Gate (I: 234)
Large tournaments are held outside of the city, beside the Blackwater (I: 246)
The King's Gate leads tourney goers back into the city (I: 255)
A network of tunnels under the city are part of the Targaryen secrets. One can reach the Blackwater Rush through one that exits into a sewer pipe (I: 290)
The spears of the City Watch are topped by black iron heads (I: 440)
Some members of the City Watch wear mail and plate (I: 448)
The Street of Flour is named so for holding numerous bakeries (I: 599)
The cloaks of the City Watch are wool dyed a golden hue (I: 600)
The seven towers of the Great Sept of Baelor each have bells. All of them ringing for a day and a night mark the death of a king (I: 600)
The other gates of King's Landing are the Dragon Gate, the Lion Gate, the Old Gate, the Gate of the Gods, and the Iron Gate (I: 601)
The Blackwater Rush is wide and deep, its currents treacherous (I: 601)
In Flea Bottom there are pot-shops along the alleys where huge tubs hold simple stews. For half a pigeon one can get a heel of yesterday's bread and a bowl of the stew (I: 601)
It is said that the pot-shops will pay a fistful of coppers for a litter of puppies (I: 602)
Below the Street of Flour, as one makes one way down Rhaenys's Hill, the maze of twisting alleys and crossing streets that make up Flea Bottom are encountered (I: 602)
The buildings of Flea Bottom lean in so closely over the narrow alleys that they nearly touch (I: 602)
The River Gate leads to the docks (I: 602)
Flea Bottom's streets are narrow, crooked, and unpaved (I: 603)
Flea Bottom stinks of pigsties, stables, tanneries, and winesinks (I: 603)
When the king dies, all the bells in the city are rung (I: 604)
One tower tolling from Baelor's Sept is a summoning for the city (I: 604)
No one is taken to the Great Sept of Baelor to be executed (I: 605)
A white marble plaza atop Visenya's Hill is before the Great Sept (I: 605)
At the head of the plaza beneath the steps of Baelor's Step is a painted marble plinth with a statue of Baelor the Blessed, the septon king, at its peak (I: 605, 606)
Around the doors of the Great Sept is a raised marble pulpit (I: 606)
The gatehouse of the Gate of the Gods is carved exquisitely with figures, their eyes done so that they might seem to follow those who pass through (II: 49)
An officer of the City Watch wears a black enamelled breastplate ornamented with four golden disks (II: 65)
Officers of the City Watch captain the gates of the city (II: 91)
There are stone-and-timber manses in King's Landing with their own wells, stables, and gardens (II: 96)
Shadowblack Lane leads to the foot of Aegon's High Hill (II: 173, 330)
From the Red Keep to a place behind the hill of Rhaenys, a litter can take an hour to be carried the distance should the streets be busy (II: 174)
Behind the hill of Rhaenys, the Street of Silk is lined with brothels of various expense (II: 174. III: 437)
Rosby and Stokeworth are near the city, not far north from it (II: 193)
A claim that there are a hundred whore houses in the city of the cheapest sort, where a clipped copper is enough to buy as much sex as one could want (II: 194)
The entrance to the Guildhall is atop broad curving steps that front the Street of the Sisters, not far from the foot of Visenya's hill (II: 229)
The gatehouse of the Gate of the Gods has a windowless guard room (II: 230)
A postern gate in the north wall of the Red Keep leads to Shadowblack Lane (II: 330)
From the foot of Aegon's High Hill one can take Pigrun Alley past rows of tall timber-and-stone buildings whose upper stories leaned out so far over the streets that they nearly touch those of the buildings across from them (II: 330)
A manse in the city would be fenced, its gates having some way for someone within to look out such as an ornate eye that opens (II: 332)
The City Watch has men who can act as mounted lancers (II: 433)
From the Mud Gate, one crosses Fishmonger's Square to reach the Muddy Way before turning onto the narrow, curving Hook which leads up Aegon's High Hill (II: 433-434)
Flea Bottom is relatively near to the Guildhall of the Alchemists (II: 438)
A bell is rung in the city to mark evenfall (II: 438)
The wealthier neighborhoods of King's Landing might be found near the Old Gate (II: 439)
There is a street named Sowbelly Row (II: 439)
Pisswater Bend is probably in the area of Flea Bottom (II: 439-440)
Coppersmith's Wynd is another street (II: 466)
Fishwives sell their catches about the quays, in stalls or with just a barrel or two to mark their place (II: 518)
Behind the quays outside of the walls, there tend to be ramshackle buildings which extend to the walls. The buildings are bait shacks, pot shops, warehouses, merchant's stalls, alehouses, and the cribs where the cheaper sort of whores do their business (II: 519)
The Dragonpit has been abandoned for a century and a half (II: 523)
Along the riverfront there are brothels, homes, and warehouses (II: 548)
There is room for thousands of people inside of the Great Sept of Baelor (II: 595)
Merling Rock is apparently an island in Blackwater Bay (II: 601)
There's a sally port at the King's Gate (II: 616)
The Iron Gate exits to the north (II: 633)
Barren spires, sea monts, jut out of the water of Blackwater Bay, some standing as much as a hundred feet above the sea. Sailors know them as the spears of the merling king. For every one that breaks the surface, a dozen more are just beneath the surface to rend a ships hull, and ships stay far away from them (III: 55, 56)
Some spears of the merling king are barren of anything but lichen, with even seabirds shunning them, but larger ones provide safe nesting places for the birds (III: 55)
While honest sailors stay away from the spears of the merling king, smugglers have made use of them the better to stay unseen (III: 57, 58)
The Targaryens raised an immense domed castle, the Dragonpit, to keep the royal dragons. It was a cavernous dwelling, with doors of iron so wide that thirty knights could ride through them abreast (III: 89)
The Gullet is a stretch of water beyond Blackwater Bay, between Massey's Hook and Driftmark (III: 109)
The Sharp Point watch tower, belonging to the Bar Emmons, has a great fire kept lit atop it. Sharp Point is at the end of Massey's Hook (III: 108)
Water fowl teem in the marshes across the Blackwater Rush from the city (III: 183)
Someone may reach King's Landing from Maidenpool by taking the Duskendale road southwards (III: 236)
There are various guilds in King's Landing who are consulted with concerning matters in the city, such as rebuilding after some catastrophe (III: 352)
King's Landing is the realms principle harbor, rivaled only by Oldtown (III: 353)
A maze of small streets cluster about the foot of Visenya's High Hill (III: 355)
Duskendale has a port, lying as it does on the narrow sea (III: 356, 397)
The Kingswood Brotherhood was almost legendary as an outlaw band. Its members included Simon Toyne and the Smiling Knight, Oswyn Longneck the Thrice-Hanged, the young and comely Wenda the White Fawn, Fletcher Dick (who some say was the finest archer that ever lived), Big Belly Ben, and others (III: 369. IV: 452)
Simon Toyne was infamous, the chief of the Kingswood Brotherhood. He once took part in a tourney as a mystery knight. He was killed by Ser Barristan Selmy (III: 485, 752. SSM: 1)
The Great Sept of Baelor has two towering gilded statues of the Father and the Mother, between which a royal bride and groom place themselves for their wedding vows (III: 660, 667)
King's Landing is many times larger than White Harbor (III: 694)
Brindlewood may is a village or town along the kingsroad (III: 695)
From the Gate of the Gods one can take the Street of Seeds to get to the Red Keep, passing brothels, bakers, and alleys, and going through Cobbler's Square (III: 696, 697)
There are so many hiding places in the deep of the kingswood that outlaws often evaded capture for decades (III: 739)
Kings are laid to rest in tombs in the Great Sept of Baelor (III: 751)
Barristan Selmy was knighted in his 16th year by King Aegon V Targaryen after performing great feats of prowess as a mystery knight in the winter tourney at King's Landing, defeating Prince Duncan the Small and Ser Duncan the Tall, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard (III: 752)
Ser Barristan rescued Lady Jeyne Swann and her septa from the Kingswood Brotherhood, defeating Simon Toyne and the Smiling Knight, and slaying the former (III: 752)
Big Belly Ben of the Kingswood Brotherhood nearly killed Lord Sumner Crakehall, but his squire Jaime Lannister defended him and sent him fleeing (III: 753)
The Smiling Knight was a madman, chivalry and cruelty all jumbled together, but he did not know the meaning of fear. When Ser Arthur Dayne broke the Kingswood Brotherhood, he fought against the squire Jaime Lannister and then against the Sword of the Morning with Dawn in his hands. The outlaw's sword had so many notches by the end that Ser Arthur had stopped to let him fetch a new one. When the robber knight told Dayne that it was Dawn that he wanted when the fight resumed, Ser Arthur responded that he would have it and made an end of it, killing him (III: 753)
Kingslanders have a certain way of speaking that can make them distinctive (TSS: 120)
Fires to destroy the remains of the dead during the Great Spring Sickness changed King's Landing. A quarter of the homes were gone, and another quarter stood empty (TSS: 121)
By 211, drought had left the kingswood so dry that fires raged through it by day and night (TSS: 121)
The sort of "teasing" that can go on between the children of Flea Bottom could include the cutting off of a toe (TSS: 124)
King's Landing roads are unpaved and muddy, with many of its buildings are of daub-and-wattle or of wood with thatched roofs, in contrast to Oldtown's cobbled streets and primarily-stone construction (IV: 12)
The shortest road from Kings Landing to Duskendale passes through Rosby and moves in a northeastern direction. (IV: 56, 57)
Perhaps a day's ride past Rosby one can come to the Old Stone Bridge, a tall, timbered inn sitting astride a stone bridge over a river junction (IV: 67)
On entering the Great Sept of Baelor, one passes beneath colored globes of leaded glass in the Hall of Lamps (IV: 101)
Past the inner doors of the Great Sept is its cavernous center, with seven broad aisles which meet beneath the dome (IV: 101)
The Great Sept's dome is lofty and made of glass, gold, and crystal (IV: 101)
The Great Sept has high windows (IV: 116)
The altars of the Seven in the Great Sept feature towering likenesses set in transpets, and are surrounded by lit candles. The floors are of marble and the transepts alone are larger than many septs (IV: 116, 124)
The Great Sept can be accessed via the Father’s Door, the Mother’s Door, the Stranger’s Steps, and other entryways (IV: 124)
Weasel Alley (IV: 125)
Crackclaw Point is a dismal land of bogs, wild hills, and pine barrens (IV: 141, 213)
The Whispers is a castle in Crackclaw Point, ruined for a thousand years, which was once associated with the Crabbs. It was once a smuggler's cove, but has been abandoned for thirty years or more (IV: 213-214)
The Gate of the Gods is grander and more magnificent than the Lion Gate (IV: 226)
East of Maidenpool, the hills are wilder and covered with pine (IV: 280)
The coast road east from Maidenpool is the shortest, easiest way towards the Whispers. It is seldom out of sight of the bay. There are towns and villages along it, growing progressively less populace the further one travels into Crackclaw Point (IV: 280)
The coast road that starts east of Maidenpool eventually gives out in the northern reaches of Crackclaw Point (IV: 280)
The people of Crackclaw Point know their bogs and forests like no other, and when hard-pressed will disappear into the caves that can be found throughout the hills (IV: 282)
Limestone hills rise beyond the Dyre Den, the castle of Lord Brune in Crackclaw Point (IV: 286-287)
The Whispers are roughly three days' ride from the Dyre Den (IV: 288-289)
The Whispers is an ancient ruined castle at the edge of a cliff above the narrow sea. Built of unmortared stones, its name comes from the whispering sound the sea makes as it rumbles through caves and tunnels the water has worn through the cliff. The castle is triangular in shape, with ruined square towers, but the keep and bailey have been swallowed up by growth; the gate has rotted, but a rusted portcullis remains behind it and there is a postern in the north wall. The castle is overgrown, its godswood engulfing its stones. There was once a beacon tower, and steps down to the ocean, but when these collapsed with the cliff they were on some decades past, smugglers no longer made use of the cove as they once had (IV: 289-291)
The hilltop castle of the Hayfords is a day's ride north from King's Landing. A stream runs along the foot of the hill (IV: 396-397)
Travelling north from Hayford castle over the next five days, riders might come across a stable, an inn, an old stone barn, a small wooded island in a stream, and an open field in succession at each night's rest (IV: 399)
Sow's Horn, a towerhouse held by knights of House Hogg, is at least 5 days north of Hayford (IV: 400)
The boundary between the lands sworn to King's Landing and those sworn to Riverrun, marked by a stream, is only a day north of Sow's Horn (IV: 400)
The Great Sept of Baelor has large gardens, capable of holding hundreds (IV: 414)
There are cells for pentinents in the Great Sept of Baelor (IV: 418)
The vaults of the Great Sept hold costly vestments, rings, crystal crowns, and other treasures of the Faith (IV: 419)
The sept-proper of the Great Sept is reached through double-doors in the Hall of Lamps. The floors are of marble, light enters through great windows of leaded, colored glass, and the seven altars are set about with candles (IV: 419)
In autumn, the leaves of trees in the kingswood turn their color, and autumn flowers and chestnuts can be found in plenty (IV: 425)
The Kingswood Brotherhood's downfall was Ser Arthur Dayne's winning the love of the smallfolk of the kingswood, expanding their grazing lands, winning them the right to fell more trees, and so on. Once they saw Ser Arthur and the king protected them better than the outlaws did, the Brotherhood was lost (IV: 453)
A comet was seen above King's Landing on the day that Rhaegar's son Aegon was conceived (IV: 520)
There are small cells atop the slender towers of Baelor's Sept, eight feet by six feet, with a single window barely wider than an arrow slit (IV: 649)
There are rooms and cells beneath Baelor's Sept, dug into the heart of Visenya's Hill. Among them is a seven-sided audience chamber of the High Septon. The room is plain, with bare walls, but the faces of the Seven have been carved into. Though they are crude, there is power to them, and their eyes are of malachite, onyx, and yellow moonstone (IV: 651)
The only fleets comparable to the Greyjoy fleet in the Seven Kingdoms are the royal fleet and the Redwyne fleet based at the Arbor (SSM: 1)
King's Landing is a much bigger city than Lannisport (SSM: 1)
The City Watch were likely known as gold cloaks even before Robert's ascension, and seem to have used gold and black before his reign (SSM: 1)

Last revised November 30, 2009
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2.1.3.1. The Red Keep

The Iron Throne is the seat of kings in the Seven Kingdoms (I: 26, 39)
The Red Keep was raised by the Targaryens (I: 64)
19 dragons skulls were kept in the Red Keep after the death of the last dragon. Many, if not all, decorated the throne room of the Targaryen kings (I: 101-2)
The Red Keep sits on Aegon's high hill (I: 142)
The Red Keep consists of seven huge drum-towers with iron ramparts, an immense barbican, vaulted halls and covered bridges, barracks and dungeons and granaries, massive curtain walls with archers' nests, all in pale red stone (I: 142)
Aegon the Conqueror commanded the raising of the keep, his son Maegor the Cruel saw it completed and slew every living person who worked on it to keep its secrets to the Targaryens alone (I: 142)
Narrow postern doors are near the great bronze gates and portcullis (I: 144, 160)
The gate and portcullis into the Red Keep are kept closed during the night (I: 144)
The Tower of the Hand is reserved for the use of the Hand of the King (I: 160)
The chambers of the King's small council are richly furnished with Myrish carpets, carved screens painted with a hundred fantastic beasts from the Summer Isles, tapestries from the Free Cities, and a pair of Valyrian sphinxes (I: 161)
The small council chambers are near the great outer gate. One crosses the courtyard and enters into the inner bailey to make his way towards the Tower of the Hand (I: 164)
The Red Keep is a castle-within-a-castle (I: 164)
Relics of the Targaryens, dusty suits of black armor with dragon scales cresting their helms, sit in halls (I: 165)
There is a secret way to get out of the Red Keep onto the cliffs facing the sea. Narrow handholds, impossible to see from the ground, have been cut into the rock so one may climb down to a trail beside the Blackwater (I: 165)
The throne room is large enough to seat a thousand people for feasts (I: 181. III: 214)
The Small Hall of the Tower of the Hand is a long room with a high vaulted ceiling and bench space for two hundred (I: 181)
Doors are made of oak banded with black iron (I: 184)
The heart tree of the Red Keep's godswood is an ancient oak (I: 214)
The Red Keep is full of cats (I: 284)
The Red Keep is smaller than Winterfell (I: 286)
The Red Keep has a network of secret tunnels under it. One, a shaft twenty feet wide with steps leading down into the darkness, can be sealed away by a huge stone sliding down to stop it (I: 289)
Some tunnels are of stone, others are earth supported by timbers (I: 290)
The throne room of the Red Keep has high narrow windows and is cavernous (I: 386)
The Iron Throne is a monstrosity of spikes and jagged edges and twisted metal, made of the swords of conquered foes. It is uncomfortable, and the back is fanged with steel which makes leaning back impossible. Aegon the Conqueror had it made, saying that a king should never sit easy (I: 386)
When the king is presiding, only he, his family, and his council may sit. All others must stand or kneel (I: 386)
Smallfolk can be present at royal petitioning sessions. They stand in the gallery, among lesser nobles and merchants who are not part of the regular court (I: 387, 390)
The court stands in the throne room, to the sides (I: 387)
The throne on its dais sits high above the floor of the hall (I: 388)
The Iron Throne is supposed to have taken a thousand blades to make, heated in the breath of Balerion the Black Dread. The hammering had taken fifty-nine days. The chair still has sharp points and edges, and can kill a man; and story has it that it has (I: 388)
The king or his Hand might hear disputes between rival holdfasts, petitions, and the adjudicating of the placement of boundary stones (I: 390)
The steps of the throne dais are of iron, and are both steep and narrow (I:393, 440)
The royal apartments are in Maegor's Holdfast (I: 429)
Maegor's Holdfast is a massive square fortress inside the heart of the Red Keep behind walls twelve feet thick and a dry moat lined with iron spikes. It is a castle-within-a-castle (I: 420)
The king's bedchamber has twin hearths (I: 420)
The throne room is oriented north to south, with windows on the eastern and western walls (I: 516)
A hundred lords both great and small might be accustomed to wait upon a king when he holds audience (I: 517)
To the rear of the throne room, there is another exit with tall doors (I: 517)
The doors of the throne room are oak-and-bronze (I: 521)
The doors of the Red Keeps' dungeons are four-inch thick gray wood with iron studs. The walls are of the same red stone the entire Keep is made of, but untended so that nitre grows in patches and the rushes are unclean (I: 524)
Thick stone parapets, some four feet high, protect the outer edge of the wall ramparts. Crenelations are cut into it every five feet for archers (I: 626)
Between the crenels at the gatehouse, atop the wall, are iron spikes on which the heads of traitor's are traditionally placed (I: 626)
There is a well in the Red Keep's lower bailey (II: 194)
From the godswood, one can take a river walk past a small kitchen and through the pig yard to reach the serpentine steps that lead down to the drawbridge of Maegor's Holdfast (II: 207)
Supplicants to the crown cluster about the high oak-and-bronze doors of the throne room (II: 294)
Rushes are used on the floors as the weather cools, even in the Tower of the Hand (II: 326)
A postern gate in the north wall leads to Shadowblack Lane, which itself leads to the foot of Aegon's High Hill (II: 330)
A cobbled square fronts the Red Keep's barbican (II: 435)
The secret entrance into the Hand's chambers in the Tower of the Hand is reached by a strange passage. One goes down a ladder (from some unknown beginning point), walks a long distance that turns in many directions, meets an iron gate. Past the iron gate is a room in which a dragon is done in a mosaic of red and black tiles on the floor. Then another ladder is taken, this time going up, with a tunnel to left being reached after climbing 230 rungs in which a full-grown man must crawl. Sixty feet on is a secret door (II: 472, 570. III: 876. IV: 118)
There are chestnut trees in the godswood (II: 548)
The sept of the Red Keep has high windows set with crystals which break the light into rainbow hues. Candles burn at every side. There are altars to each of the Seven and benches where people may pray and sing and listen to sermons (II: 595)
The Red Keep's sept is in the outer castle (II: 596)
The Queen's Ballroom is not a tenth of the size of the Red Keep's Great Hall (which can seat more than 1,000 people) and only about half the size of the Small Hall of the Tower of the Hand (which can seat two hundred people.) Beaten silver mirrors back every wall scone so that light is reflected into the room, the walls are paneled in richly carved wood, and sweet-smelling rushes are scattered on the floor. Musicians use a gallery above it. Arched windows with heavy velvet drapes run along the south wall (II: 597)
Long trestle tables are used in the Queen's Ballroom (II: 597)
The tall doors at the end of the Queen's Ballroom can be closed and barred (II: 598)
The Red Keep sits on steep and rocky bluffs spotted with lichen and gnarled thorny trees (II: 604)
The Queen's Ballroom has a back door (II: 617)
It's said that the Iron Throne can be dangerous to those not meant to sit in it (II: 668)
There is a bedchamber on the floor above the Queen's Ballroom (II: 687)
There are many small inner yards within the castle (III: 63)
A long slate-roofed keep behind the royal sept has been named the Maidenvault since King Baelor the Blessed confined his sisters there, so that sight o them might not tempt him into sinful thoughts (III: 64, 65)
King Aerys was always cutting himself upon the Iron Throne (III: 130)
There are snug, windowless chambers beneath the north wall (III: 133)
King Maegor wanted the means to make a secret escape from the Red Keep should his enemies ever trap him (IIII: 136)
There are kennels in the Red Keep, where men might sometimes set dogs to fighting (III: 137)
One of the chambers beneath the north wall contains a large flat stone meant for a bed. By the use of counterweights, it can be made to float upwards to reveal secret steps after pushing at a secret place (III: 140)
Aerys cut himself so often on the Iron Throne that men took to calling him King Scab (III: 410)
The royal nursery in Maegor's holdfast is on the floor below the royal apartments (III: 594)
The Kitchen Keep is outside of Maegor's Holdfast. It has spacious apartments at the top, with a large bedchamber and adequate solar, a bath and dressing room, and small adjoining chambers for serving men and women. Some of those cells even have windows, though mostly they're little more than arrow slits (III: 655)
The Kitchen Keep is only across the courtyard from the castle's main kitchen (III: 655)
Much of the castle is connected underground, and the Kitchen Keep is no exception with passages leading from its vaulted cellar (III: 655)
The Kitchen Keep has a roof garden (III: 659)
Traitor's Walk (III: 659)
The throne room has a long carpet stretching from the great bronze doors to the Iron Throne (III: 740)
A round white room, its walls whitewashed stone hung with white woolen tapestries, forms the first floor of White Sword Tower, a slender structure of four stories built into an angle of the castle wall overlooking the bay. The undercroft holds arms and armor, the second and third floors the small spare sleeping cells of the six brothers of the Kingsguard, and the topmost floor is given over to the Lord Commander's apartments. His rooms are spare as well, but spacious, and they stand above the outer walls (III: 750)
The tunnels beneath the Red Keep are supposedly full of traps for the unwary (III: 875)
Maegor the Cruel decreed four levels of dungeons for his castle. On the upper level are cells with high narrow windows where common criminals are confined together. The second level has smaller cells without windows for highborn captives, torches in the halls casting light through the bars. The third level cells, the black cells, are smaller still and have doors of wood so that no light enters them. The lowest level is the fourth, and once a man is taken down there he never sees the sun again, nor hears a voice, nor breathes a breath free of agonizing pain, for the fourth level is set aside for torment (III: 875)
It is supposedly safer to go through the fourth level of the dungeons in darkness, because there are things one would not wish to see (III: 875)
In the chamber of the five doors beneath the castle, one of the doors will lead the way to the river. It has not been opened in a long time (III: 876)
In 211, the Red Keep was garrisoned by the Raven's Teeth, the private guard of Brynden Rivers, Lord Bloodraven (TSS: 122)
The Red Keep’s dungeons are managed by the King’s Justice and the gaoler. Under them is the chief undergaoler, the undergaolers, and the turnkeys. There are wages paid for a score of turnkeys and six undergaolers, but in Robert’s reign there were no more than twelve and three respectively (IV: 121-122)
There are said to be more than half a hundred secret passages. Among them are crawlways too small for an adult, a passage to the black cells, a stone well with no bottom. Also found is a room full of skulls and bones (IV: 174)
At the end of Traitor's Walk are the dungeons and prison cells of the Red Keep, in a squat, half-round tower. The upper levels are divided into cells for prisoners afforded some comfort. At ground level is the entrance to the dungeons, behind a splintery grey and iron door. Inbetween are chambers for the King's Justice, the Chief Gaoler, and the Lord Confessor in the days when the Targaryens kept such an office. The King's Justice serves not only as a headsman, but as the man in charge of the dungeons and the men who labored there (IV: 396)

Last revised July 07, 2009
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2.1.3.2. The Kingsguard

The Kingsguard wear snow-white cloaks (I: 32)
Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, was the deadliest of the Kingsguard in the time of Aerys II (I: 55)
It was said that Eddard Stark slew Ser Arthur Dayne in single combat (I: 55)
The Kingsguard are said to be the finest knights in the Seven Kingdoms (I: 64)
There are only seven Kingsguard, who wear white armor and have neither wives nor children. They live only to serve the king (I: 64)
Famous Kingsguard include Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, Ser Ryam Redwyne, Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, the twins Ser Erryk and Ser Arryk who died on each other's swords during the Dance of the Dragons, Ser Gerold Hightower the White Bull, Ser Arthur Dayne the Sword of the Morning, and Ser Barristan Selmy the Bold (I: 65)
The Kingsguard split during the Dance of the Dragons, some supporting Aegon II and others supporting Rhaenyra (I: 65. IV: 232. SSM: 1)
Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, breaks tradition and wears gold-plated armor with a helm shaped like a lion's head and blazons his shield with the emblem of his house (I: 97, 262)
The Kingsguard wear intricate suits of white eenamelledscales, their fastenings for breastplate and other pieces made of silver (I: 120, 520)
The shields of the Kingsguard are pure, unblazoned white (I: 257)
Ser Barristan Selmy was the best sword in the realm during his youth (I: 266)
The days that men like Ryam Redwyne and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight wore the white is seen as dead and gone. Only Barristan the Bold is judged to be of the true steel (I: 270)
Ser Arthur Dayne, Ser Gerold Hightower, and Ser Oswell Whent were ordered by Rhaegar to stand guard at the 'tower of joy' near Dorne. All three died there (I: 354-356)
Queen Naerys was supposed to have loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight greatly (I: 399)
Prince Aemon and his love for his brother's queen was doomed (I: 461)
A member of the Kingsguard gives up his inheritance and any chance at children when he swears his vows (I: 519)
The Kingsguard is a Sworn Brotherhood, vowing to serve for life. Only death may relieve one of his sacred trust (I: 520)
A Kingsguard swears to ward the king with all of his strength and to give his blood for his ruler's (I: 520)
The Sworn Brothers of the Kingsguard are always knights (I: 521)
The rite for making a new member of the White Swords can vary. In common there seems to be the fact that it is a solemn and formal event, in which the knight kneels as he makes his vows before the kings, and that he receives the white cloak of the Kingsguard from the Hand of the king or the Lord Commander himself (I: 526. II: 520)
It was rumored that Daeron II's true father was not Aegon IV but his brother, Prince Aemon the Dragonknight (I: 554, 693. TSS: 136)
Ser Roland Crakehall, Ser Willem Wylde, and the knight Ser Donnel of Duskendale (who might have been a hedge knight) were among the Kingsguard of King Daeron II (THK: 476, 512)
House Hollard was almost entirely destroyed at King Aerys's command following the Defiance of Duskendale, except for the young Dontos Hollard who was allowed to live at Ser Barristan Selmy's request (II: 33. IV: 134)
The White Swords take turns at shielding the king and the royal family (II: 211)
Prince Aemon the Dragonknight was said to have a wept when his sister Naerys wed their brother Aegon (II: 432)
The twin brothers Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk were said to have wept when they dealt mortal wounds to each other in the Dance of the Dragons (II: 432)
The Kingsguard do not marry (II: 577)
Jaime Lannister was the youngest knight to ever wear the white cloak of the Kingsguard at the age of 15 (II: 581. SSM: 1)
Ser Barristan Selmy was born on the Dornish Marches and squired for Lord Swann of Stonehelm in his youth (II: 646. III: 651)
Cersei Lannister seems to have had much to do with the chosing of her brother Jaime for the Kingsguard (III: 128)
Ser Jaime was chosen to the Kingsguard only a little over a month after the death of old Ser Harlan Grandison, who passed away in his sleep (III: 128)
Ser Ilyn Payne had been captain of Lord Tywin's guard while he was Hand. He once boasted that it was the Hand who truly ruled the realm, and Aerys ripped his tongue out for it (III: 128)
Lord Tywin was furious that he had lost his heir to the Kingsguard. He gave up the Handship on a thin pretext and returned to Casterly Rock, taking Cersei with him (III: 129)
Ser Arthur Dayne rode against the Kingswood Brotherhood, and knighted Jaime Lannister on the battlefield for his valor (III: 129, 130)
Ser Mandon Moore was brought from the Vale by the Hand, Lord Jon Arryn, and made one of Robert's Kingsguard (III: 134)
Prince Aemon the Dragonknight is said to have protected his sister Naerys night and day (III: 183)
Aegon the Unworthy had never harmed Queen Naerys, perhaps for fear of their brother the Dragonknight (III: 184)
When a knight of the Kingsguard, Ser Terrence Toyne, had fallen in love with one of Aegon the Unworthy's mistresses, King Aegon had them executed. Toyne was dismembered piece by piece, while the mistress was forced to watch before meeting her own death. His brothers attempted to avenge him by killing Aegon, but Prince Aemon the Dragonknight died defending him instead, and they paid for their treason with their lives
The Dragonknight once won a tourney as the Knight of Tears, so he could name his sister the queen of love and beauty In place of the king's mistress (III: 282)
Barristan the Bold twice donned a mystery knight's armor, the first time when he was only ten (III: 282)
After Ser Jaime Lannister donned the white cloak of the Kingsguard at the great tournament at Harrenhal, King Aerys sent him away to King's Landing before he could take part in the jousting. The White Bull offered to take his place, but Aerys refused (III: 345, 502)
A former member of the Kingswood Brotherhood, Ulmer, claimed to have put an arrow through the White Bull's hand to steal a kiss from a Dornish princess, as well as her jewels and a chest of gold (III: 369)
Growing frantic, Aerys gracelessly reminded Prince Lewyn Martell that Princess Elia was in his power and sent him to take command of 10,000 Dornishmen coming up the kingsroad (III: 418)
Jon Darry and Barristan Selmy of the Kingsguard were sent towards to Stoney Sept to rally what they could of Lord Connington's scattered men (III: 418)
King Aerys kept Ser Jaime Lannister close, not trusting him, and so Ser Jaime learned all of his plans before the Sack of King's Landing (III: 419)
Jon Arryn came to Sunspear the year after Robert took the throne to return Prince Lewyn's bones and speak with Prince Doran (III: 436, 593)
Barristan Selmy slew the last of the Blackfyre Pretenders, Maelys the Monstrous, in single combat on the Stepstones during the War of the Ninepenny Kings (III: 521, 752)
Ser Ryam Redwyne was the greatest knight of his day, and one of the worst Hands ever to serve a king (III: 604)
Ser Barristan Selmy was born on the Dornish Marches and squired for Lord Swann of Stonehelm in his youth (II: 646. III: 651)
The Dragonknight was saved from a snakepit by Baelor the Blessed, who had walked the Boneway barefoot to make peace with Dorne (III: 665)
Crippled or whole, a Kingsguard serves for life. If crippled, they'll be allowed to serve out their life with honor while other White Swords take up the burden in their place (III: 703. SSM: 1)
Supposedly, a suitable gift to the Faith would persuade the High Septon to release a Kingsguard from his vows (III: 703)
The first floor of the White Sword Tower contains a white book on a white table. (III: 750)
A round white room, its walls whitewashed stone hung with white woolen tapestries, forms the first floor of White Sword Tower, a slender structure of four stories built into an angle of the castle wall overlooking the bay. The undercroft holds arms and armor, the second and third floors the small spare sleeping cells of the six brothers of the Kingsguard, and the topmost floor is given over to the Lord Commander's apartments. His rooms are spare as well, but spacious, and they stand above the outer walls (III: 750)
The winter raiment of the Kingsguard are a tunic and breeches of white wool and a heavy white cloak (III: 750)
The Round Room has white wool hangings covering the walls anda white shield and two crossed longswords mounted abov the hearth. Behind the table is a chair of old black oak with cushions of blanched cowhide, the leather worn thin (III: 751)
Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, Ser Ryam Redwyne, the Demon of Darry, Ser Duncan the Tall, and the Pale Griffn Alyn Connington were all past Lord Commanders (III: 751)
The table in the Round Room is carved of old weirwood, pale as bone, shaped as a huge shield supported by three white stallions. By tradition, the Lord Commander sits at the top of the shield and the brothers three to a side on the rare occcasions when all seven were assembled (III: 751)
The book atop the table in the Round Room is massive, two feet tall and a foot and ahalf wide, a thousand pages thick, fine white vellum bound between covers of belached white leather with gold hinges and fastenings. It is called The Book of the Brothers but is most often simply called the White Book (III: 751)
Every knight who has ever served in the Kingsguard has a page in the White Book, to recod his name and deeds for all time. On the top left-hand corner of each page was drawn the shield the man had carried at the time he was chosen, inked in rich colors. In the bottom right corner is the pure white shield of the Kingsguard. In the space between the shields were written the facts of each man's life and service (III: 751)
The drawings and illuminations in the White Book are done by septons sent from the Great Sept of Baelor three times a year (III: 751)
It is the duty of the Lord Commander to keep the entries in the White Book up to date (III: 751)
Barristan Selmy won the name of "the Bold" in his 10th year when he donned borrowed armor to appear as a mystery knight at a tourney in Blackhaven, where he was defeated and unmasked by Ducan, Prince of Dragonflies (III: 752)
Barristan Selmy was knighted in his 16th year by King Aegon V Targaryen after performing great feats of prowess as a mystery knight in the winter tourney at King's Landing, defeating Prince Duncan the Small and Ser Duncan the Tall, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard (III: 752)
Ser Barristan the Bold defeated Lormelle Long Lance and Cedrik Storm, the Bastard of Bronzegate (III: 752)
Barristan Selmy was named to the Kingsguard in his 23rd year by Lord Commander Ser Gerold Hightower (III: 752)
Ser Barristan brought King Aerys II to safety during the Defiance of Duskendale despite an arrow wound in his chest (III: 752)
Ser Barristan avenged the murder of his Sworn Brother, Ser Gwayne Gaunt, who was cut down by Ser Symon Hollard, master-at-arms at Duskendale, when Lord Darklyn seized King Aerys (III: 752. IV: 134)
Ser Barristan rescued Lady Jeyne Swann and her septa from the Kingswood Brotherhood, defeating Simon Toyne and the Smiling Knight, and slaying the former (III: 752)
Ser Barristan served in the honor guard that brought Lady Cersei Lannister to King's Landing to wed King Robert (III: 752)
Barristan the Bold led the attack on Old Wyk during Balon Greyjoy's Rebellion (III: 752)
Ser Jaime Lannister served in the honor guard that brought his sister the Lady Cersei to King's Landing to wed King Robert, and was champion in the tourney held at King's Landing on the occasion of their wedding (III: 753)
The Smiling Knight was a madman, chivalry and cruelty all jumbled together, but he did not know the meaning of fear. When Ser Arthur Dayne broke the Kingswood Brotherhood, he fought against the squire Jaime Lannister and then against the Sword of the Morning with Dawn in his hands. The outlaw's sword had so many notches by the end that Ser Arthur had stopped to let him fetch a new one. When the robber knight told Dayne that it was Dawn that he wanted when the fight resumed, Ser Arthur responded that he would have it and made an end of it, killing him (III: 753)
When the Kingsguard meets in the Round Room, the Lord Commander formally asks, "Sers, who guards the king?" They reply with what other knights have been asked to see to his protection. "Will they keep him safe?" asks the Lord Commander after, and when they respond in the affirmative he replies, "Be seated, then" (III: 754)
There have been times during its history where the Kingsguard has been divided against itself, most notably and bitterly during the Dance of the Dragons (III: 754)
The Kingsguard are sworn to obey the king, but the first duty laid on them is to protect him (III: 757)
The vows of the Kingsguard require them to protect the king's secrets as they would his life (III: 815)
Ser Gwayne Corbray was a knight of the Kingsguard during Daeron II's reign. He wielded a Valyrian steel sword named Lady Forlorn, and fought against Daemon Blackfyre on the Redgrass Field for nearly an hour before being defeated. Daemon dismounted to make sure he was not accidentally trampledand ordered that he be helped to the rear (TSS: 111)
Aemon the Dragonknight carried the Valyrian steel sword named Dark Sister (TSS: 137. IV: 69)
Knights of the Kingsguard have a ceremonial suit of scale armor made of mother-of-pearl chased with gold (IV: 101)
A shield of Ser Duncan the Tall, painted with his arms, resides in the armory in Evenfall Hall (IV: 132, 140)
No house had as many knights in the Kingsguard as House Darklyn's seven (IV: 132)
Ser Barristan the Bold’s rescue of King Aerys from captivity at Duskendale led to Lord Denys’s immediate surrender (IV: 134)
Ser Symon Hollard, master-at-arms of Duskendale under Lord Denys Darklyn, killed Ser Gwayne Gaunt of the Kingsguard when King Aerys was seized. He was killed in turn by Barristan Selmy when he rescued the king (IV: 134-135)
When the Young Dragon was killed, a Kingsguard knight named Ser Olyvar Oakheart, known as the Green Oak, died at his side (IV: 185)
It's claimed that the rumors of Daeron the Good being the son of the Dragonknight were false, put about by Aegon the Unworthy when he considered putting aside his son for one of his bastards (IV: 193)
Ser Lucamore Strong, in later days known as Lucamore the Lusty, kept three wives and sixteen (or perhaps thirty) children in secret. When this was discovered, King Jaehaerys I had his Sworn Brothers castrate him, and then sent him to the Wall to serve out his days in the Night's Watch (IV: 193, 236)
It's claimed that Prince Lewyn Martell kept a paramour, a great beauty in her day, while he was in the Kingsguard (IV: 193)
Ser Criston Cole, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard at the time of the death of Viserys I, convinced his son Aegon II to claim the rule of the Seven Kingdoms as his father lay dying. This led to the war between Aegon and his elder sister Rhaenyra, whom Viserys had long groomed as his successor. Ser Criston became known as the Kingmaker, and ultimately died because of his actions. It was later claimed that he acted from ambition, or to defend ancient Andal custom giving precedence to sons over daughters, or because he had once had an affair with Rhaenyra until she spurned him (IV: 194)
Some of King Aerys's Kingsguard, such as Jonothor Darry, believed that though their vows included protecting the queen, it did not mean that they could protect her from her husband despite his abuses (IV: 232)
A famed knight of the Kingsguard, known as the Greatheart (IV: 236)
Oriel Greycloak was a knight of the Kingsguard who became a traitor (IV: 236)
Orivel the Open-handed was a knight of the Kingsguard who became known for his cowardice (IV: 236)
Long Tom Costayne served as a knight of the Kingsguard for sixty years (IV: 236)
Ser Addison Hill and Red Robert Flowers rose to command the Kingsguard despite being bastards (IV: 236-237)
Ser Michael Mertyns, known as the White Owl, and Ser Jeffrey Norcross, called Neveryield, were two knights of the Kingsguard who were famed in their day but were less well-known in later days (IV: 236)
Ser Rolland Darklyn was the youngest man to serve in the Kingsguard until Ser Jaime Lannister. He was made a knight of the Kingsguard on the battlefield, and died within the hour, but his king survived (IV: 237)
The arms of Ser Criston Cole before he donned the white cloak were ten black pellets on scarlet (IV: 237)
A number of knights from Crackclaw Point have served in the Kingsguard: a knight each from House Hardy, House Cave, and House Pyne, and no less than three from House Crabb by the names of Ser Clement, Ser Rupert, and Ser Clarence the Short (a tall man, but shorter than his legendary ancestor) (IV: 283)
It's said that Prince Lewyn Martell of the Kingsguard was killed at the Trident by Ser Lyn Corbray, although it's reported Prince Lewyn was already sorely injured at the time (IV: 331)
Though court protocol suggests many must bend the knee when the king or queen enter a place, the Kingsguard do not do so, standing guard as is their duty (IV: 349)
It is generally the Lord Commander who decides who will lead the Kingsguard in his stead when he is called to some other duty (IV: 392)
Knights of the Kingsguard do not give up their swords, even in the presence of their king (IV: 417)
The Kingswood Brotherhood's downfall was Ser Arthur Dayne's winning the love of the smallfolk of the kingswood, expanding their grazing lands, winning them the right to fell more trees, and so on. Once they saw Ser Arthur and the king protected them better than the outlaws did, the Brotherhood was lost (IV: 453)
The Dragonknight is said to have been a hero who died too young (IV: 519)
The valiant death of a Kingsguard might lead to a statue or other monument being raised to him (IV: 532)
Only a knight of the Kingsguard can champion a queen in a trial by battle if she has been accused of treason (IV: 647, 652)
Ser Quentyn Ball was called Fireball for his hot temper and red hair. He had been promised a place in the Kingsguard by Aegon the Unworthy, and forced his wife to become a silent sister so he could take up the honor. By the time a place was open, however, it was Aegon's son Daeron who ruled and he preferred to give the cloak to another man, Ser Willem Wylde. (TMK: 668-669)
Daemon II dreamed that Ser Duncan the Tall would be a knight in his Kingsguard (TMK: 682-683)
Three knights of the Kingsguard were part of the army that appeared at Whitewalls when the conspiracy to crown Daemon II was revealed (TMK: 731)
Ser Roland Crakehall was one of the Kingsguard knights at Whitewalls (TMK: 732)
It's said Barristan Selmy cut a bloody path through the Golden Company before slaying Maelys the Monstrous (V: 79)
Prince Lewyn of Dorne was an uncle of Doran Martell and died fighting on the Trident (SSM: 1)
If a member of the Kingsguard is seriously crippled but survives, he wouldn't be forced out of the White Swords but allowed to live out his life with honor while other members take up the burden (SSM: 1)
The Kingsguard are sworn to celibacy along with giving up their wives and inheritance, but no doubt some have lapsed (and one White Sword was killed for sleeping with the mistress of a king (SSM: 1)
The oaths of the Kingsguard do not envision rebellion, so there is nothing which says that a successful rebel is an improper king to serve. In the case of Jaime Lannister and Barristan Selmy, they were pardoned by Robert Baratheon and were allowed to choose whether they would remain as part of the White Swords (SSM: 1)
The Kingsguard are not necessarily always the best knights, as sometimes the best knights are not interested in taking such stringent vows. Further, politics, favoritism, rewards for past service, and other factors play a part as being a member of the Kingsguard is a fine position for younger son of a lord (SSM: 1)
Robert Baratheon's need to fill five positions in the Kingsguard at once was highly unusual (SSM: 1)
Ser Jonothor Darry, brother to Ser Willem Darry, was the second member of the Kingsguard to die at the Trident (SSM: 1)
Kingsguard often commanded forces for the Targaryen kings (SSM: 1)
The king chooses the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Seniority may be a factor, but it is not decisive (SSM: 1)
The Kingsguard are bound to follow the orders they receive, generally, and cannot pick and choose orders to follow (SSM: 1)

Last revised February 21, 2016
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2.1.3.3. The Hand of the King

The Hand is the second most powerful man in the kingdom. He speaks with the king's voice and wields his authority, leads his armies and drafts his lays, and can sit on the Iron Throne to pass judgement when the king is absent. (I: 39)
It is said 'What the king dreams, the Hand builds.' The lowborn put it: 'The king eats, and the Hand takes the shit.' (I: 39)
Tywin Lannister was Hand of the King for twenty years (I: 103)
The Hand is quartered in the Tower of the Hand in the Red Keep (I: 160)
The Small Hall of the Tower of the Hand is a long room with a high vaulted ceiling and bench space for two hundred (I: 181)
The household guard of the Hand bear the emblem of the hand on their garb (I: 181)
The Hand has a solar (I: 182)
The Hand wears a badge of office, fashioned in the shape of a hand (I: 297)
Aerys Targaryen's last Hand was killed n the Sack of King's Landing, although he had been appointed only a fortnight earlier. The Hand before him had burned to death. The two before them had died landless and penniless in exile. Lord Tywin Lannister was the last Hand of the King to depart King's Landing safely (II: 41)
The Hand's private audience chamber is not so large as the king's, nor anywhere near the size of the throne room, but its Myrish rugs, wall hangings, and golden-tinted round window give it a sense of intimacy (II: 172)
The Tower of the Hand has rushes on the floors at need (II: 326)
The Hand's rooms include a garderobe (II: 326)
The secret entrance into the Hand's chambers in the Tower of the Hand is reached by a strange passage. One goes down a ladder (from some unknown beginning point), walks a long distance that turns in many directions, meets an iron gate. Past the iron gate is a room in which a dragon is done in a mosaic of red and black tiles on the floor. Then another ladder is taken, this time going up, with a tunnel to left being reached after climbing 230 rungs in which a full-grown man must crawl. Sixty feet on is a secret door (II: 472, 570. III: 876)
It seems that the Hand picks his own particular way of showing his office - a chain made up for a Hand is called his chain of office, while an earlier Hand used a less extravagant badge to show the same rank (II: 564)
While Hand, Lord Tywin had had hopes to make a royal marriage between his daughter Cersei and one of the Targaryen princes, either Prince Viserys when he matured or Prince Rhaegar should his wife have died in childbed. He kept her with him at court to further this end (III: 128)
Lord Tywin gave up his office on a thin pretext and removed himself and his daughter to Casterly Rock because of his anger at King Aerys for choosing his son and heir Ser Jaime for the Kingsguard (III: 128)
Of Aerys's Hand's after Lord Tywin Lannister, Lords Owen Merryweather and Jon Connington had been exiled, Lord Qarlton Chelsted had been dipped in wildfire and burned alive, and Lord Rossart the Pyromancer was gutted by the Kingslayer (III: 129, 130, 327, 418, 752. IV: 184. SSM: 1)
The Hand of the King, Lord Jon Connington led the royalists at Stoney Sept during the Battle of the Bells, personally wounding Lord Hoster Tully and killing Ser Denys Arryn, cousin to Lord Jon Arryn and the darling of the Vale. He lost the battle however and was forced to flee. Aerys then exiled him for his failure (III: 327, 418, 752. SSM: 1)
Jon Arryn came to Sunspear the year after Robert took the throne, and was questioned closely, along with a hundred others, about what happened during the Sack and who was responsible for deaths of Elia and her children (III: 436)
Ser Ryam Redwyne was the greatest knight of his day, and one of the worst Hands ever to serve a king (III: 604)
Septon Murmison's prayers are said to have worked miracles, but as Hand he soon had the whole realm praying for his death (III: 604)
Lord Butterwell was renowned for wit, Myles Smallwood for courage, Ser Otto Hightower for learning, yet every one of them failed as Hands (III: 604)
The Targaryens often chose Hands from their own blood, with results as various as Baelor Breakspear and Maegor the Cruel (III: 604)
Septon Barth, the blacksmith's son plucked from the Red Keep's library by the Old King Jaehaerys I, gave the realm forty years of peace and plenty. He understood the changeable genders of dragons (III: 604. IV: 520)
Lord Tywin became Hand when he was no more than 20 years of age (III: 745)
Lord Rivers, better known as Bloodraven was named Hand to King Aerys I on his ascension to the throne (TSS: 81, 121)
Lord Hayford was a noted loyalist who was appointed Hand by King Daeron II just before the Redgrass Field, as Lord Butterwell had done such a terrible job in that office that some questioned his loyalty. Lord Hayford was killed during the battle (TSS: 110)
It was rumored that King Aerys I was ensorceled by his Hand, Lord Bloodraven, who was thought to be the true power behind the throne (TSS: 112)
Brynden Rivers, Lord Bloodraven, was considered unlikely to put a halt to a private war between the Blackwoods and Brackens that was formenting in 211. In fact, he was a Blackwood on his mother's side and was thought capable of assisting his cousins against the hated Brackens (TSS: 121)
Bloodraven ordered the pyromancers to burn the many bodies that had collected in the Dragonpit during the Great Spring Sickness. The light of their wildfire could be seen as a glow throughout the city during the night (TSS: 121)
Lord Bloodraven controlled the throne for a number of reasons. King Aerys I kept to his apartments by 211 and no man could see him without Bloodraven's leave. Aerys's queen, Alienor, prayed daily that the Mother might bless her with a child. Prince Maekar Targaryen sulked at Summerhall, nursing grievances against his brother King Aerys, while Prince Rhaegel was both meek and mad and children were too young to be of any use in dislodging Brynden Rivers (TSS: 122)
Baelor Breakspear was known to argue that rebels should have the hope of recieving a pardon, so as to encourage them to bend the knee. Lord Bloodraven, on the other hand, believed that pardoning rebels sowed the seeds for future rebellions (TSS: 131)
When Lord Bloodraven was named Hand, Prince Maekar refused to be a part of the king's small council (in part because he felt he should have been named to that office) and removed himself to Summerhall (TSS: 132)
Brynden Rivers was a lord only by courtesy (TSS: 132)
House Butterwell, whose lord had been Hand to King Daeron I before being dismissed for his suspicious incompetence, kept a foot in both camps during Blackfyre's Rebellion (TSS: 135)
A grand funeral for a Hand of the King might include morning services for the deceased with nobles in attendance, afternoon prayers for the commons, and evening prayers open to all (IV: 100)
A dead Hand might be shown in full armor on the stepped marble bier of the Great Sept, with knights standing vigil (IV: 101-102)
Lord Merryweather appears to have been on the small council before he succeeded Lord Tywin as King Aerys's Hand (IV: 102)
The Tower of the Hand has crenellated battlements and looms over the outer ward (IV: 183)
After burning Lord Chelsted, Aerys visited Queen Rhaella's bedchambers and abused her (IV: 232)
Tywin Lannister was not even twenty-one when Aerys named him his Hand (IV: 235)
While Hand, Tywin Lannister planned to wed his daughter to Prince Rhaegar, and promised her this when she was six. When Rhaegar was a new-made knight, he visited the west with King Aerys. Lord Tywin hosted a grand tourney, which Rhaegar won, and it was at the feast afterwards where the betrothal was to be announced. King Aerys rejected the proposal, however, saying that kings do not wed their sons to their servants (IV: 360-361)
Lord Jon Connington was sent into exile by King Aerys, with his castle, wealth, lands, and more stripped from him. When Robert became king, he restored the castle and a small portion of the lands to a cousin who had remained loyal, but did not name him a lord while also retaining the gold and gave most of the rest of the land away to other supporters (IV: 408)
During the reign of Baelor the Blessed, King Baelor caused a stone mason to be made High Septon despite his being utterly unable to carry out the duties, being unable to read, write, or even remember simple prayers. It's rumored Baelor's Hand, the future Viserys II, had the man poisoned to spare the realm humiliation. (IV: 412)
Baelor the Blessed ordered the writings of Septon Barth to be burned (IV: 522)
Bloodraven was reputed to be able to change the appearance of his face, turn himself into a one-eyed dog, turn into a mist, command packs of grey wolves to hunt down his enemies and carrion crows to spy on the people of the realm. Hated and feared, there were those who spoke treason against him and the king, and some of these were executed (TMK: 650-651)
Lord Butterwell was Master of Coin when Aegon IV sat the throne, and then was made Hand for a time by Daeron II, but not for long. During the first Blackfyre Rebellion, his second son fought with the rebels, his eldest with the king, while he kept out of the fighting (TMK: 658)
Lord Butterwell's own grandfather had also been Hand of the King at one time, serving Aegon IV, and apparently gave him great leeway in the use of both his property and his daughters (TMK: 662-663)
The Seven Kingdoms were seemingly left to fend for themselves against Lord Dagon Greyjoy and his ironborn reavers troubling all the lands on the western coast, as King Aerys I ignored the trouble so he could be closeted with his books, while Prince Rhaegel was said to be so mad as to dance naked in the halls of the Red Keep and Prince Maekar so angry at his brother and his advisors that he sat and brooded at Summerhall. Some blamed Lord Bloodraven, the Hand of the King, for this state of affairs, while others claimed his attention was focused on Tyrosh where the sons of Daemon Blackfyre and Bittersteel plotted another attempt to seize the Iron Throne (TMK: 664)
The initial replacement for Lord Tywin as Hand as the elderly, amiable Lord Merryweather, famed for throwing lavish feasts and flattering the king shamelessly. When the rebellion began, he declared the rebels outlaws and sent commands to various minor lords to deliver them or their heads but he himself never stirred from King's Landing. His methods proved so ineffectual that he was exiled by the king and stripped of all his lands and wealth. Robert later restored the title of lord and the castle and the lands, but not most of the wealth. (SSM: 1, 2)
Lord Jon Connington was Aerys's second hand after Tywin, and was chosen for his youthful vigor, courage, and fame as a warrior (SSM: 1)
Lord Jon Connington was stripped of lands, titles, and wealth before being exiled across the narrow sea. A cousin of his, however, supported Robert and after the war was rewarded by having the castle given to him to hold as Knight of Griffin's Roost, less most of the lands and treasury (IV: 408. SSM: 1)

Last revised September 04, 2012
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2.1.3.4. The Small Council

The King's Spider is styled lord, and sits on the council. He is master of whisperers (I: 93, 145, 161, 677)
The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard has a seat on the small council (I: 145, 677)
The master of coin sits on the council (I: 145, 677)
The Hand is part of the small council (I: 160)
The chambers of the king's small council are richly furnished (I: 161)
The Grand Maester of the Seven Kingdoms has a place on the council (I: 162, 676)
The Hand sits to the right of the king (I: 162)
The small council chambers are near the great outer gate (I: 164)
The master of ships and the master of laws hold council seats (I: 676)
The master of coin oversees many of the king's officials: the four Keepers of the Keys, the King's Counter and the King's Scales, the officers in charge of mints, harbormasters, tax farmers, customs sergeants, wool factors, toll collectors, pursers, wine factors, and so on (II: 200)
There are three royal mints overseen by the Master of Coin (II: 200)
Officials in the past have been highborn, and those of middling birth or even foreigners have been rare of non-existent in such positions (II: 200)
Some say the rot in King Aerys's reign began with Varys, the Master of Whisperers (III: 411)
The small council was said to lick the hand of Lord Bloodraven, Hand of King Aerys I in 211 (TSS: 122)
Lord Merryweather appears to have been on the small council before he succeeded Lord Tywin as King Aerys's Hand (IV: 102)
Lord Rykker appears to have been on the small council in the latter half of King Aerys's reign (IV: 102)
Lord Butterwell was Master of Coin when Aegon IV sat the throne, and then was made Hand for a time by Daeron II, but not for long. During the first Blackfyre Rebellion, his second son fought with the rebels, his eldest with the king, while he kept out of the fighting (TMK: 658)
It was said that Elaena Targaryen, sister of Baelor the Blessed, she did most of the work of her second husband, who sat on the small council as master of coin (SSM: 1)

Last revised October 09, 2011
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